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Some of the most profound changes in the world happen so slowly that they don’t make the front page. In less than a generation we have shifted from libraries to
Google searches, from landlines to cellphones, and from books and CDs to eBooks and streaming. This “new normal” was never declared on the front page of the newspapers. You and I learned it as we lived it.

Cross-cultural marketing is now table stakes. Start with the numbers: according to studies from
Nielsen, 21 of the 25 most-populated counties in the United States are already majority multicultural, meaning that they include numerically significant pluralities of traditionally minority populations, or are already majority-minority. In the next five years, the multicultural population will grow by 11 million in the United States, compared to only one million for non-Hispanic whites (NHW). Only 40% of the Millennial generation are NHW. The generation behind them is already majority multicultural. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States itself will be majority-minority by 2044 – and we think perhaps years or even decades sooner.

This is news to a lot of Americans in general, and to many business leaders and marketers in particular. Perception has yet to catch up with reality. According to the American Community Survey, Americans think the nation is only 24 percent multicultural. The real number is 40 percent.

Image Source: Nielsen

But the answer is not “multicultural marketing” – not the creation of more demographic silos. The appropriate response is marketing to a multicultural world, transforming our definition of the marketplace itself. We must replace what we think is true with what is.

The temptation for some is to view the new marketplace just as a collection of discrete communities, but that is almost as big a mistake as ignoring the change at all. The transformation is not only an expansion in the number and size of cultural segments, it is also an expansion in personal interest across cultures. For this reason alone, the term “cross-cultural” is more precise that “multicultural.” Cultivating interest in brands, goods, and services is not a matter of creating additional silos of consumers but of recognizing that consumers’ interests now extend beyond their own communities. Hamilton did not break records on Broadway because of a fixed pitch to a variety of sectors-by-culture. It soars on cross-cultural appeal, and a joyful disregard for cultural expectations. Hamilton presents both a mosaic and a melting pot of global, cultural influences, starting with the casting of largely non-white actors as historical figures who definitely were not cultural minorities then or now.

More often the effect of the cross-cultural marketplace expresses itself in quotidian ways: the enthusiasm for sriracha and sushi, the popularity of Patti LaBelle sweet potato pies at
Wal-Mart Stores, the introduction of more inclusive shades of “nude” makeup from L'Oreal Paris, the success of
Procter & Gamble’s CoverGirl Queen Collection, or Estee Lauder-owned MAC Cosmetics’ best selling Selena line, named for the late “Queen of Tejano Music,” which sold out only 24 hours after launch. Among consumer packaged goods (CPG) alone, multicultural spending is not only leading growth but also helping stem declines.